Rookie Spitfire pilot Sid Cleaver is on his first sortie in the fighter plane of every schoolboy’s dreams.

He can feel the sweat on the back of his neck as his squadron supports 100 Dakotas as they make vital supply drops to our troops from the skies above the Info Valley in Odisha, India.

Hidden in the valley are crack Japanese troops, looking to target Allied aircraft.

It is 1944, Sid is 20 and he is seeing combat for the first time.

Watch our interview with Sid

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“I stuck to my leader like glue,” he said.

The sortie passes off without major incident, the Dakotas complete their drops and no aircraft are lost – but that changes very quickly.

“I remember one day we were given a ground target where it had been reported was full of Japanese,” says Sid.

“We had to keep circling around the area, like the old Red Indians, and every now and then we were to fly down towards them to draw their fire, taking it in turns to divert their fire.

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“As we were going down all the fire was coming on and on right at you, but that was our job.

“We’d go down from different directions each time, never from the same spot otherwise those firing on the ground would have been ready to fire on us.

“But, oh my goodness, that first time I had to go down and all I could see was that fire coming straight for me...“

A few minutes after I’d done it a second group of pilots came and one lad got shot down. He crashed almost right in the village below.”

Sid, now 92, reflects for a moment.

Then he adds that despite the terrible danger he faced on a daily basis being in the air behind the controls of a Spitfire was simply “perfect.”

“Once I was in the cockpit of the Spitfire I thought this is it, it doesn’t get better than this. I felt good, oh my goodness, I felt like I was a big pilot now.

“I can’t compare it to any other planes that I’ve flown, because nothing compares to it, it was perfect."

He had to complete plenty of tough training before taking charge of the legendary Castle Bromwich-built fighter for the first time.

Sid laughs as he recalls the wry comment from his chief instructor as he signed a Spitfire over to him for his first solo flight.

“Don’t bend it,” the instructor smiled before they filled in the paperwork and Sid collected his parachute.

“When I started to approach the Spitfire I wanted to take my time and really take it all in, and enjoy the moment. I kept thinking I’m going to fly that Spitfire. It was beautiful. I was excited but apprehensive at the same time.

“Once I was in the air she was climbing like a rocket, I pulled the throttle back but still we were climbing and by the time I had settled down I looked behind me and the airfield looked miles behind me.

“I was told to take an hour in the aircraft so I went up to 10,000 feet and I started to get used to the feel of her. When I was up there in the Spitfire I thought ‘This is it, you’ve made it’.

Today Sid, a father-of-three and a grandad from Evesham, is one of only a handful in the Midlands who either flew, or worked on Spitfires.

"The hangar was full of Spitfires - what a sight!"

It was love at first sight – and still is.

The moment when Sid first saw the world renowned Spitfire still makes his heartbeat quicker, seven decades on.

“I was in Cairo in 1944 at Fayed Air Base’s Operational Training Unit, near the Bitter Lakes, at the start of my advanced flying course when I first saw the Spitfires and I remember thinking ‘Wow, I’ve made it’,” he says

“I didn’t know until then that there was a chance that I could be flying Spitfires.

“It was quite a walk from the railway line, where my group had arrived, to the airfield but when we got to the first hangar we saw the door was slightly ajar and we all rushed to look inside.

“It was full of Spitfires. Oh my, what a sight!

“The NCO in charge of us told us to hurry up and carry on down the road. But when we got to the next hangar we did the same and found that one was full of Kitty Hawks.

“It was only later when we were standing in an empty hangar as an officer read out our names that we found out what we’d be flying. We fell into two groups and the officer informed the other group they would be flying Kitty Hawks. It was then that I knew that I would be flying Spitfires and that was tremendous news.

“It was like a dream come true because the Spitfires had such a reputation and since I’d gone into the RAF it was clear that they were enamoured with the aircraft. Whether it was fate that I got to fly them I don’t know. It could’ve just as easily been a Defiant or a Hurricane.”

Training was very demanding.

Sid had to “swot up” on every part of the Spitfire by reading the “bible” that was the Pilot’s Notes for the Spitfire. He also had to do a cockpit check of all the instruments blindfolded.

Target training - hitting targets towed on the road - was also a dangerous stage, and not only for those on the ground as the trainee Spitfire pilots were firing living ammunition.

There was danger, too, in the air, as several young pilots died due to the engine blowing up after being thrashed in the North African desert.

Family's shock as Sid signs up as a pilot

Sid's story of how he became a pilot is an unusual one, for it’s not something that he actively sought out.

It happened after his older brother Victor, had failed to be accepted into the RAF after four days of tests.

Sid simply decided that he fancied four days holiday too, so followed in his brother’s footsteps – and, much to his surprise, succeeded where Victor had failed.

He remember his parents Mary Anne and market gardener Frederick William were just as shocked as he was when he returned with the news the RAF had accepted him as a pilot.

At the time in February 1941, at the age of 17, he was too young to officially enlist so was put on deferred service, finally being called up in January 1942.

After completing his advanced pilot training he was sent to India.

Here he would not only join a top squadron – Squadron 607 – where the enemy they were up against was the Japanese, he would also become the Number Two to a Flight Commander.

Sid met his late wife Betty May, of Honeybourne, also Evesham, in the RAF when she worked in the stores.

Their three sons are Martin and Peter, who live in Worcester and Robert who lives in Cheltenham.